Google want me, the publisher, to refine my GDPR consent mechanism so I can introduce ‘Q’ to my audience to the benefit of a Quancast and their partners’ partners. FUBAR, folks. FUBAR.

“Under existing EU law, Google already requires publishers and advertisers to get consent from their end users for the use of our advertising services on their websites. We’re asking our partners to refine the way they get consent for the use of Google’s services on their sites, in line with GDPR guidance…

Quantcast is a behaviorial advertising platform. At its heart lies Q – “the world’s largest AI-driven audience behavior platform for the open Internet that today directly quantifies over 100 million mobile and web destinations.”

And this week it was urging publishers to make sure that their GDPR consent forms included it in their list of advertising partners.

The clock is, after all, ‘ticking for publishers’ with GDPR now little more than four weeks away.

“When it comes into effect, website owners that want to use data to deliver personalized content or ads will need to collect “unambiguous” consent from consumers and provide transparency into the companies that want to track them,”writes Somer Simpson, GDPR product lead at Quancast.

Fortunately, the IAB have put together a ‘transparency and consent framework’ that – a bit like the current cookie consent forms of today – will introduce the likes of Quancast to the publisher’s audience and explain in clear and unambiguous terms what their role is date-wise.

And this is down to the publisher. Off one form, to explain not just ‘Q’, but any other partners that might be tapping into Quancast’s data trove.

“Publishers also need to ensure that their vital advertising partners (and their partners’ partners) get the consent they need to continue providing value, including provide services like analytics, fraud detection, security, viewability and conversion tracking,” Somer warns.

And their ‘partners partners….’

So if I as a publisher partner with Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers platform and Quancast are a partner of Google, then I, the publisher, have to come up with a form and a framework that gleans user consent for Quancast – via Google.

And presumably my partners’ partners’ partners if Quancast then let a further third party play with the original data.

Little wonder that in Germany, the publisher Axel Springer was to be found in push back mode.

Particularly as Google started to flex its muscles around the alternative to not opting in to their services.

“Their policy concerning opt-ins and working as a prerequisite for opt-ins for personalized ads, and if you [publishers] don’t comply, they say you may lose your open auction revenue, which is significant for publishers. This is once again a clear signal of market dominance in the digital advertising market,” Axel Springer told Digiday, echoing the line that Google want to be ‘co-controller’ of a publishers’ data.

But the line that stood out from that Digiday piece was that from the Google spokesman at the end – that the onus was firmly on the publisher to “refine the way they get consent for the use of Google’s services” – ie build a consent mechnasism that also includes Quantcast’s invite to your audience’s data party. As a partner’s partner.

The whole thing is FUBAR….to quote Saving Private Ryan.

The sheer complexity of putting together a consent form that unambiguously covers every activity by every partner in the adtech chain is just beyond huge swathes of small to mid-sized publishers who might be minded to run Google’s ad products.

Introducing ‘Q’ to my audience on MyFootballWriter is just a complete non-starter.